The present invention refers to a new sealed package for wound dressing adhesive tapes and bandages in general, which allows a preferential rapidly opening.
The invention moreover refers to the means for manufacturing that package.
The well known dressing adhesive tapes comprise an adhesive support housing a wound dressing pad or similar, covered by two protecting films which must be manually removed before the application.
Generally, said dressing adhesive tapes are packed into envelopes, coverings or wrappers, made by two paper or plastic sheets, which can be opened acting on two lateral flaps.
For a more practical and hygienic use of the dressing adhesive tapes, have been patented and manufactured rapidly opening packages which allow to open the package and to remove the protective films simply by pulling out the ends of the same covering, which breaks in two half-packages.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,245,855 discloses a bandage having a protective cover strip provided with a series of indentation so as to facilitate the removal thereof from the adhesive support.
The present invention is a substantial improvement of a package of the type disclosed in the Dotta patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,337.
The product disclosed in the above mentioned patent has an undifferentiated opening system. Indeed, pulling the ends of the package, the user will draw first the left or right half-package, indifferently, uncovering the corresponding part of the tape. The uncovering of the bandage will then be completed by drawing, again by pulling, the remaining portion of the package. In this solution it is necessary that the two bandage parts to be uncovered are equal, each corresponding to a half part of the bandage, in order to avoid the risk, in case the two parts are differently dimensioned, that a smaller portion is uncovered firstly, instead of the larger one.
When the bandage is used, it is however a problem for the user to correctly position the bandage relatively to the wound part, because only half bandage is visible and available. The user is led to entirely uncover the bandagexe2x80x94before its applicationxe2x80x94keeping between two fingers the uncovered adhesive part and drawing out the remaining half-package.
In order to avoid this improper use, which could make void the practicality and sterility of the product, it should be better that the user had available, after the removal of the first half-package, an uncovered bandage portion leaving open the whole dressing pad, so that it is easier to position the bandage grasping the remaining half-package and drawing it away only when the part of the bandage comprising the dressing pad has been applied to the skin.
Main object of the present invention is therefore to meet this need providing a predetermined preferential opening in the package. Advantageously, according to the invention, about ⅔ of the adhesive bandage will result always uncovered after the first drawing of the package; this can be accomplished maintaining the possibility of manufacturing the package according to the method disclosed in the Dotta patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,418,822 which allows to reuse the protective sheet or liner of the adhesive support for obtaining the protective films of the bandage.